Telehealth makes front page in UK newspaper

Rather to many people’s surprise the popular Daily Express newspaper featured a telehealth story on its front page on Wednesday. It appears to be an extension of the UK’s media’s current interest in the woes of hospital emergency departments and the simplistic ‘blame the GPs’ theme that has been fuelled by recent comments from the Secretary of State for Health. However, the article is positive about telehealth blood pressure monitoring: DIY test will save your life: gadget sends blood pressure results direct to your GP (online version). Interestingly, the article contains no reference to the 3ML initiative. One wag Tweeted “Oh no! I’m rubbish at DIY. I’ll surely fail the test”. Here’s a link to a picture of the front page so that readers can gauge the weight that the item received.

Comments

The Express runs several front page health stories a week, most of them as flimsy as this one. As far as I know, the only evidence for telehealth saving lives is for patients with chronic heart failure.

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.